A Plague of Grackles

darkening sky
a plague of grackles scatters
then gathers again………………………………………………….Willie

against the white lawn
frost-blackened figs…………………………………………………..Bill

someone else playing
someone else’s piano…
au clair de la lune……………………………………………………Melissa

with my good hand
uncreasing the photograph………………………………………..Sandra

in a church fresco
the Devil falls separate
from all the others……………………………………………………Bill

too small to house worms
so many green apples………………………………………………….Bill

a raffish display
his hot pants and spandex
lead the parade…………………………………………………….Willie

launching a rubber band at me
she misses again…………………………………………………….Melissa

a tarte au chocolat,
a steaming pot of tea
and this poem……………………………………………………..Sandra

wild plum blossoms
in the garden gone to ruin…………………………………………….Willie

all legs and tails
three newborn lambs
tumble out of the sack…………………………………………………..Sandra

past the old landslip
he thinks how it must have been……………………………………..Bill

without another word
one more sake;
the mattress comes to me………………………………………………Joseph

try and explain kapok
to a kid who doesn’t care……………………………………………… Sandra

inked above his heart
the tattoo reveals
a floating world……………………………………………………..         Willie

narratives in sparks
climb up the chimney……………………………………………………..Sandra

tarnished moon the colour of this wooden floor…………………. …Bill

the last note of the hymn
an owl’s hunting cry………………………………………………………..Sandra

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Melissa Allen, Wisconsin, USA
Bill Dennis, Pennsylvania, USA
Joseph Mueller, Vermont, USA
Sandra Simpson, Tauranga, New Zealand
William Sorlien, Minnesota, USA

Composed at Issa’s Snail, October 14 to December 2, 2012

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A Hundred Gourds 2.2, March 2013

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black and white and brown

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Great, now they have magnetic poetry on the refrigerator in the break room at work. Apparently no one actually wants me to do any work. 

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happy…

…what was I saying? Oh, right. Happy National Haiku Poetry Day. You all bought your greeting cards to send your friends, right? (Maybe next year I’ll produce my own greeting card line. I’m sick of Hallmark hogging all the National Haiku Day action.)

The Haiku Foundation likes to celebrate this little holiday by announcing the results of every single contest it runs. Like the Haiku Now contest. And the Touchstone Awards, for individual poems and for books. Wait…hey! I’m on that Touchstone Award list! They liked my poem!

Yeah, I really haven’t come up yet with a plausibly modest-sounding way of announcing that I’ve won an award. If you have, feel free to share.

Um, and also? There’s this anthology.

A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku

The main reason to purchase this anthology, of course, is for the gorgeous pictures of poppies on the cover. It will look fantastic on your coffee table. Secondarily, however, there’s poetry by me. And sixteen other poets whose company I’m kind of awestruck to be in.

Yes, those poets. You’ll hear our names often in the coming years, apparently. No mention of what context you’ll hear them in, of course. Hopefully not the crime blotter.

Anyway, as I was saying, happy Haiku Day.

Oh yeah…if you’re interested in buying the book, email me. Sob. I knew this blog would end up as a shameless commercial enterprise someday….

pwoermds 6,7,8,9

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himn

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morentain

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truewards

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whyther

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(rain ahead)

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rain ahead
I burn the house down
in advance
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pwoermd 5

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screamn

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wrong season again

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calculating
the lift required
harvest moon

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the sound of geese through the crosshairs

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hunter’s moon
he texts to say
he’s lonely

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…and it’s not even a full moon. I’m probably going to some kind of kigo hell.

“calculating”: Frogpond 36.1. “the sound” and “hunter’s moon”: Modern Haiku 44.1

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pwoermd 4

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ohpening

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pwoermd 3

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skeye

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getting warmer

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summer night
a gunshot
interrupts the heat

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first star
cell phone glowing
at the end of the dock

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Presence 47

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I thought it was time to haul out some of the warm-weather ku that I felt dumb posting during the winter. Yeah, I know that forty-five doesn’t really count as “warmer” to most people, but welcome to Wisconsin.

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pwoermd 2

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gravitease

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(three or four)

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three or four fingers deep red rose

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Frogpond 35.3

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pwoermd 1

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insinly

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still here

I went to a gathering of some of my favorite haiku poets in the world last week and one of them told me that she was worried about me because I hadn’t been posting on my blog. Oh, please don’t worry. I’m not sick or in trouble or anything, just kind of tired. And lazy. Okay, fine, mostly lazy.

Some fun projects that I was working on before I got tired and lazy have recently come to fruition, though. In no particular order….

I wrote a review of David Marshall’s wonderful book The Lost Language of Wasps for Haibun Today.

One of my haiku was shortlisted for the Touchstone Awards for Individual Poetry.

Several of my haiku and one haibun appear in the latest Red Moon Anthology, nothing in the window.

I have a couple haiku in Kamesan’s World Haiku Anthology on War, Violence and Human Rights Violation. 

There are some other fun publications coming up soon. Stay tuned.

Also, I’m basically spending the summer going from one haiku event to another, including a haiku retreat in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, in June, Haiku North America in Los Angeles in August, and the quarterly meeting of the Haiku Society of America in Evanston, Illinois, in September. So if you’d like to hang out with me, or conversely you are trying to avoid me at all costs, now you know how.

It’s National Poetry Month, in case you somehow managed to avoid hearing about that. I’m thinking about celebrating by writing some poetry. Let me know what you think.

(another bird)

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another bird dream probing the tenderness under a wing

Frogpond 36.1

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I was outside this morning, Easter morning, and the birds had all come back to life. The world was light and lively again instead of muffled and deaf in the way of winter. It felt the way it does when you wake up from a dream and the world that seemed so real and important when you were asleep is revealed as a flimsy stage-set world, created by your mind as a venue for its latest improbable fantasy. And now good morrow to our waking souls. 

(angle)

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first frost
between the moon and me
the angle of repose

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Haiku Bandit Society, January Moon Viewing Party

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Yeah, I know it’s been…approximately forever. There was a trip for work, and then a family vacation, and then a blizzard. Holy moly. Serious blizzard. With serious shoveling. Also, with the grad school and the work deadlines and… okay, I’m making excuses. But no one can be on all the time. I’m off right now. Off for a while. I’ll try to stop by a little more frequently for the rest of January though. I mean February. How do these months keep going by like this?

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123/8

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something

about
a barn

in a sense
we’re all
incarnate

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with

a second left
on the timer

January
misspells
itself.

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feathers

but not
enough

to reassure me
of your
innocence

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(purple haze)

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purple haze
he answers my fire
with smoke

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(work)

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what do you mean, you can’t read my handwriting? oh, fine then.

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black ice
the splinter tries
to work its way out
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(causes)

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northward journey
of wings–
the original
causes
of love
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